Public Services – 332
Approved by the Board of Trustees June 26, 2025
St. Joseph Public Library
Social Media Policy
The St. Joseph Public Library (SJPL) uses social media platforms for cultural, civic, educational, informational, and recreational purposes. These platforms provide a public forum to share information about library-related programs, events, materials, and other SJPL-related topics and issues. SJPL may use social media to communicate with patrons, authors, other libraries, and community organizations.
Social media accounts are maintained by SJPL. Accounts will be monitored by the Outreach & Marketing Services Manager and/or designated staff. SJPL reserves the right to remove comments that violate our policies, are unlawful, or are off topic. SJPL social media content is archived by a third-party vendor in accordance with Missouri statutes.
Social media users are responsible and liable for what they post to social media. SJPL has no control over patron-generated comments or tags posted by non-SJPL staff that appear on SJPL social media accounts. Opinions expressed on social media are not necessarily endorsed by SJPL or SJPL staff nor do they represent SJPL’s views or policies.
SJPL reserves the right to remove any of the following from SJPL’s social media accounts:
1. Material that violates copyright.
2. Off-topic content.
3. Commercial promotions, advertisements, political campaigning, or spam content.
4. Inappropriate, sexually explicit, obscene, hateful, or racist comments or content.
5. Comments or content that contain personal attacks, libel, slander, threatening or harassing language, defamation, or are otherwise objectionable or illegal. These will be documented and may be reported to law enforcement.
6. Private and/or personally identifying information (i.e. phone number, address, etc.)
Social media users whose content or comments are removed may be blocked from engaging with SJPL social media.
When appropriate, SJPL may choose to link its social media account with other organizations or link to other outside websites. Any link to an external website or non-SJPL social media profile is not a sponsorship, authorization, affiliation, or endorsement of that website or profile. SJPL is not responsible for content posted on external websites or non-SJPL social media profiles.
Employee Use of Social Media:
SJPL does not monitor personal social media accounts of staff, but will, when made aware, address posts that violate established SJPL policies. A post that violates privacy, confidentiality, or legal guidelines will be met with appropriate disciplinary action.
When responding to questions or comments seen on SJPL posts as an SJPL employee, employees should identify themselves as SJPL staff. Comments made as employees of SJPL should be respectful, informative, accurate, and professional in nature. SJPL staff who are not designated social media staff have no duty to engage on social media on behalf of SJPL.
*Previous approval date: March 26, 2019